Mogadishu - (AFP) - Somali security forces are still striving Saturday evening to eliminate gunmen inside a hotel in the capital, Mogadishu, 24 hours after an attack in which at least 13 civilians were killed and claimed by the extremist Al-Shabaab movement .

The attackers were still holed up in the hotel early Saturday morning. The sound of bullets and intermittent explosions were also heard in the area.

"We have received information about the confirmation of the death of five more victims, which brings the total number of civilians killed by terrorists to 13," the official, Mohamed Abdel Qader, told AFP.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack. "A group of al-Shabaab attackers stormed the Hyatt Hotel in Mogadishu," it said in a brief statement posted on a supportive website.

"The security forces continued to neutralize the terrorists who were surrounded in a room inside the hotel," Abdel Qader added.
"The security forces rescued dozens of civilians, including children, who were trapped in the building," he added.

Somali police spokesman Abdel Fattah Aden Hassan told reporters that the bombing was carried out by a suicide bomber.

Witnesses also reported that a second explosion occurred outside the hotel a few minutes after the first explosion, resulting in casualties among aid workers, members of the security forces, and civilians who rushed to the scene following the first explosion.

The Islamist movement Al-Shabaab has been waging an insurgency against the Somali federal government supported by the international community for 15 years. In the statement claiming responsibility for the attack, it said that its fighters were "shooting indiscriminately inside the hotel."

Abdel Aziz Abu Musab, al-Shabaab's spokesman, announced on Saturday on Radio Andalus, affiliated with the movement, that his forces were still in control of the building and that they had "caused heavy losses" on the security forces.

This is the biggest attack on Mogadishu since the election of new Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in May. The government has not yet commented on it.

The witness, Hayat Ali, said that the security forces found three children, between the ages of four and seven, hiding in the hotel toilets and in shock, but they were able to meet their families later.

Hussein Ali, another survivor, told AFP that he performed the Maghrib prayer with his companions and then went to drink tea in one of the hotel's courtyards when they heard the first explosions.

He added, "I was able to escape to a nearby exit gate, away from the gunmen. They started shooting and I heard the sounds of shots behind me, but thanks to God (...) we managed to escape."
"Those who preferred to hide inside the building died, including one of my colleagues," he added.

The United States, Britain and Turkey, as well as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa (IGAD), strongly condemned the attack.
The US embassy pledged to "continue to support Somalia to hold the killers accountable."

And in the Hamar Jajib neighborhood of the Somali capital, shells also fell on Saturday, wounding 20 people, including children, Mokawee Modi, who is in charge of the neighborhood administration, told AFP.

"Among the seriously injured people is a married woman and her husband, as well as a family," consisting of two parents and their three children, he said. No party has claimed the attack yet.

The director of the main hospital in Mogadishu, Mohamed Abdul Rahman Jama, said that at least 40 people were injured in the attack on the hotel and in the bombing of the Hamar Jajab neighborhood, receiving treatment in the hospital.

The movement's members were expelled from the main cities in Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, in 2011, but they are still deployed in vast rural areas and are capable of launching attacks against civilian and military targets. They have intensified their attacks in recent months.

On Wednesday, the US military announced the killing of 13 members of the Al-Shabaab movement who were attacking soldiers from the Somali army, in an air strike it launched on a remote area in this country located in the Horn of Africa.

A statement from the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) stated that the raid was launched on Sunday near Tidan, about 300 kilometers north of the capital, Mogadishu.

The United States has launched a number of air strikes against militants in recent weeks.

And in May, US President Joe Biden ordered the reinforcing of the US military presence in Somalia to help the local authorities confront Al-Shabaab, after his predecessor, Donald Trump, had ordered the withdrawal of the majority of US forces.

In recent weeks, Al-Shabaab militants have launched several attacks in the border area between Somalia and Ethiopia, which has raised fears that the movement may adopt a new strategy.

And last month, the new Somali President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said that putting an end to the Al-Shabaab rebellion required more than just a military strategy, but he stressed that his government would negotiate with the movement only at the appropriate time.

In early August, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Berri appointed former leader of the movement Mukhtar Robow as Minister of Religious Affairs in the Somali government.
The 53-year-old Robow, nicknamed Abu Mansour, publicly defected in August 2017 from the movement he helped found, and the United States had in the past allocated a financial reward of five million dollars for his arrest.